Question of the Day

Whose side of the story do you believe?

Social chaos

"In his most recent book, 'The Great Disruption,' [Francis] Fukuyama blames the social chaos of the democratic world of the past 35 years spiraling crime, rising divorce, tragically high abortion and illegitimacy rates, and worsening levels of trust and citizenship on the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, a process that began during the 1960s… .

"Far-reaching changes in the nature of work opened the way for women to enter the work force in large numbers. Women leaving home to compete for jobs put unprecedented pressures on the family by, among other things, diminishing the father's traditional role as breadwinner. The decline of the family, Mr. Fukuyama notes, correlates with many of the social pathologies, including crime, that have afflicted the economically advanced Western societies since the '60s.

"Intensifying the strain on the family, he continues, was a technological invention of the post-industrial era: the Pill. The Pill encouraged the 'liberation' of women … but it also had an effect on men's behavior by altering their attitude toward the risks of sex. It helped turn them into cads by separating sex from obligations toward child rearing. Men's ties to family life, already fragile since they have fewer natural bonds toward their offspring than do women, became precarious."

Brian C. Anderson, writing on "Capitalism and the Suicide of Culture," in the February issue of First Things

Holocaust skeptic

"The problem is, what everybody knows about the Holocaust isn't always true. Although the grisly tale of human beings rendered into soap figured in some of the earliest accounts of events inside Nazi-occupied Europe, it is now universally rejected by historians as a fabrication… . The concentration camp at Dachau did have a gas chamber, but it was never used. There were no gas chambers at Belsen… .

"To [David] Irving, the author of numerous books on the Third Reich, the Holocaust is 'an ill-fitting legend.' Irving doesn't deny that many Jews died. Instead he denies that any of them were killed in gas chambers, that Hitler directly ordered the annihilation of European Jewry, and that the killings were in any significant way different from the other atrocities of the Second World War."

D.D. Guttenplan, writing on "The Holocaust on Trial," in the February issue of the Atlantic Monthly

Relationships and sex

"Another lesson that the Winans kids learned was to take their music into the culture because their parents had instilled within them a desire not only to be true to their God, but to be relevant to the culture… .

"BeBe and CeCe took an unusual and unexpected path to fame, one that dragged them through the heart of the greatest religious social scandal of the 20th century. In 1980, the siblings traveled to North Carolina to audition for televangelist Jim Bakker's PTL singers… .

"By 1997, BeBe and CeCe Winans had moved on to solo careers… . As [CeCe] prepared to reach the pop/R&B; market in a more focused and targeted way, this time recording for a pop label that also had [the contemporary Christian music] market distribution, [she] began to hone the message for her audience.

"Whether you are a believer or not," she said, "spirituality is real. It is something that every human can relate to, because we are all created from the same source. Believer or not, everybody has that God-space in their heart… ."

"Like many other members of the new generation, BeBe rejected a segregated view of culture. "It's not who I am," he said. "God has people everywhere, and I'm honored that my music can be understood and service both Christian and non-Christian markets… .

"My songs can speak to both issues of love toward Him, but also about relationships and sex, because God is concerned about all those things."